Multiplexed electrical detection of whole viruses from plasma in a microfluidic platform

Abstract

The advancement of point-of-care diagnostics is crucial to improving patient outcomes, especially in areas with low access to hospitals or specialized laboratories. In particular, rapid, sensitive, and multiplexed detection of disease biomarkers has great potential to achieve accurate diagnosis and inform high quality care for patients. Our Coulter counting and immunocapture based detection system has previously shown its broad applicability in the detection of cells, proteins, and nucleic acids. This paper expands the capability of the platform by demonstrating multiplexed detection of whole-virus particles using electrically distinguishable hydrogel beads by demonstrating the capability of our platform to achieve simultaneous detection at clinically relevant concentrations of hepatitis A virus (>2 × 10³ IU mL⁻¹) and human parvovirus B19 virus like particles (>10⁶ IU mL⁻¹) from plasma samples. The expanded versatility of the differential electrical counting platform allows for more robust and diverse testing capabilities.